Arrival in Soma

peace corps and us in my house

We finished the motorbike training on the Saturday, had a beach day with Mariella on the Sunday and then had Monday left to finish all our shopping, buckets, jugs, plates, pots, pans cutlery and all that sort of stuff. We interspersed it with visits to blue bar for a julbrew or to Parisienne for coffee and cake. After about 3 or 4 taxi trips we were finished. The truck arrived for us about 9.30 the next day and Alieu spent an hour trying to get all our stuff tied up under the tarpaulin shaking his head and exclaiming. “ Never have I been up country with this much stuff,” so we all stayed out the way. Anyway eventually we were off. The road was extremely bumpy. The scenery was pretty unchanging really, flat and dry. It did get a bit greener when we got near to the little tributaries of the river Gambia and we were most excited when we got to some minor hills.
We had been rather deceived by the a/c in the truck because when we finally got to Soma we stepped out of the truck to the full blast hairdryer effect. The Jawneh family were waiting for us with all their children to help unload our things. Then we began the tedious business of unpacking. Our houses were pretty dusty but we were quite pleased with them really. The compound is a row of concrete houses with corrugated metal roofs. Kate’s house is first, then mine and then Kanti’s. On the end are some trainee nurses who are very nice. I got given my second Gambian name by the family which is Aminata, Kate is Nyima and Kanti is Kumba.
We have two rooms the first one a kitchen/ living room which goes through to a bedroom and then an outdoor yard which is the bathroom with pit latrine and drain for the bucket bath. This is open air but is very private because it has walls all around. You do get the company of the lizards though, of various sizes and colours, who come and sunbathe on the walls. They are nice though and they eat the insects. The day after we got here I uncovered my pit latrine and a lizard was clinging to the cardboard. As I picked up the cardboard he plunged spreadeagled into the murky depths of the pit latrine. I felt quite sorry because I like the lizards and I didn’t think he really deserved this fate so I left the latrine uncovered in the hope that he would somehow escape and sure enough a little while later he emerged unscathed!
We collect water in Jerry cans from the tap which is about 10 metres away and I am becoming well muscled from the effort of carrying two full cans at a time. If you leave the water in the pit latrine in the sun it becomes boiling so you can actually have the luxury of having a hot bath. Which of course you don’t want because it is about 40 degrees! I have to say I am not that keen on going out to the pit latrine when it is dark because I think that a rat or mouse is going to be lurking in the shadows so I always make sure that I make a lot of noise and shine my torch everywhere. Some volunteers actually sleep in their pit latrine with a mosquito net suspended by nails on the walls but I am not that brave yet! I think the big situation will get worse as the rainy season approaches. I have quite a lot of spiders in my house but I have decided to keep them because as spiders go they are pretty inoffensive. We did have rather a performance the other night when I heard kate shrieking next door I had to go and rescue her as she stood on the chair screaming and a scorpion thing raced about the floor. I had to bop it and then attack it with the broom because it was too fast to catch and eventually it gave up the fight. I did feel a bit bad because I don’t really like killing things but it was either that or have Kate move in with me so I had to.

We get regular visits from different families of goats in our compound as well as pigs and dogs to forage amongst the rubbish. The Gambia hasn’t quite got a handle on rubbish disposal. It just accumulates in piles and then they eventually burn it. Some of the goats were intrigued by our game of boules the other day and starting nibbling at the Jack.

On the Thursday we went to our office for the first time which is a ten minute walk from our compound in a place called Mansa Konko. In Mansa Konko apart from the education directorate there is the governors office, an army barracks, a nurses school, a police station and pakalinding upper basic school and not a lot else but it does have a nice relaxed feel to it. On that first day we met the governor and the police chief and then sat in some training on disability. Then during that day we got a frantic call from Tom and Lynne, the volunteers in Basse. They had organized a week long workshop for 120 teachers and Pete and Liz who were supposed to be going to help were not allowed to go because their director had something else planned for them. So the next day we travelled to Basse thankfully picked up by vso who happened to be taking Jim up there that day from the Kombo.

It was a bit of a baptism of fire for me and Kate because we spent Saturday helping out Tom at a workshop for the secondary teachers on teaching methods and then Sunday afternoon preparing resources and then we were straight into it. We spent a day with each group delivering training on different aspects of reading. My bit was early phonics and reading strategies. It was really valuable experience for us learning what the level of the teachers was and how they engaged with the activities. Most groups were really nice and took part in good spirit even when they had to do embarrassing things like sing nursery rhymes and songs. Most of them actually loved this and wanted to copy down all the words of the rhymes and kept asking me to sing them over again so that they could get the tune right. Some groups were harder to engage and it was hard to know how much they were understanding. Lateness to sessions was a bit of an issue as was getting up and walking out and answering mobile phones. Tom was continually at them about these things and things did improve slightly but it was still quite annoying since a lot of the offenders were headteachers.

Kate and I stayed at the VIP house, don’t get too excited it wasn’t great! Jim moved into his compound where he will be living for the next year which is very nice with some lovely mango trees and a nice family living there. He is adamant that he is going to keep chickens but that seems more hassle than its worth to me. He reckoned that he was going to name them after me and Kate. Kate would be the troublesome chicken and I would be the one who just gets along with the business of laying the eggs! Hmmmm!


There are two places to eat in Basse – Aminatas and Fatous, you wouldn’t have a clue that they are restaurants from the outside. The food was nice but a bit limited. Chicken and chips or chicken and spaghetti or domada was about all there was so we had a lot of chicken that week. Kate and I sometimes got breakfast from the ladies on the roadside who sell bean sandwiches, nyebe or accra sandwiches which is like fried beans in a sauce. Very tasty and only 5 dalasi! Our bitiko Mandinka wasn’t that successful as we tried to buy some boiled eggs and got raw eggs instead. We could remember the word for eggs siise killo but neither of us could remember the word for boiled. It turned out to be fajindiringo, bit of a mouthful.

The first few days no where in Basse had any Julbrew but we did sample a Gambian guiness and then the julbrew arrived so we spent a few nights in the Nigerian bar run by Victor and also discovered that they sell sachets of gin and whisky here, an exciting discovery!

We spent a few evenings also playing petanque in the street with Lynne and Tom, as tom is a bit of a champion petanque player. Just missing the qualification for the English team apparently. It was fun. Kate was better than me to be fair. She was good at getting the close balls but I did develop quite a good smash technique.

By Friday we were fairly shattered. The next day we made our way back to Soma. Firstly in a sept place.( A car with seven places). This was very uncomfortable, with me, Kate and big Gambia guy squashed in the back. We had to get out of the car to cross on the ferry at Bansang which was a relief and then we went all the way to Farafenni where we crossed on another bigger ferry. Bit of a problem at Farafenni when we got a call from Jim. Some guy just phoned me from your phone, you’ve left it in the taxi. So my phone is now in Barra police station where the guy kindly took it. He was a Gambian but lived in Leeds and was just visiting family here. So eventually we arrived back in Soma safely minus a phone.

On the Sunday we braved Soma market which was quite good fun. The ladies were fun and were pleased that we were practising our Mandinka. The food situation isn’t great here though. Each stall was selling practically the same thing, that is potatoes, onions, shrivelled up aubergine and a few, extremely small tomatoes. Very different from being in the Kombo where you can get everything. We have a minimarket that sells powdered milk, tea, coffee, tinned mackerel, biscuits and soft drinks. The only fruit you can get is oranges and bananas. The other day I dreamed about eating scones with jam and cream!

We have seen a bit more of the peace corps people. We got invited to a going away party for Lisa's twin sister that her nursing students were hosting. Her sister had only been here a week but they wanted to give her a send off. It was good fun, the students were really enjoying themselves, they each did turns, telling jokes and doing skits and dancing. We had baobab juice and popcorn and also an alternative attaya with condensed milk and lots of sugar. This was really nice. It went on until dark and then we walked back.

About 8 of the peace corps are coming to us on Thursday to cook dinner for Jacob's birthday and then on Friday we go to Janjanbureh to see Pete and Liz. We were contemplating going to the Kombos but we have to pay for accommodation so we are not sure whether we can afford it. It will be good to have a change of scenery from Soma anyway xx L

Now we have completed our first week at week. At least Kate completed but I was struck by my first bout of gastro. Not very pleasant at all especially when you have to go outside to the pit latrine several times a night and the batteries in your torch have run out and then your bed collapses beneath you. These are the times where you think what an earth am I doing here. Apart from still not being able to eat much apart from biscuits I am on the mend and today Kate and I wiled away some hours. We played hangman, and squares and cards and then to kill a bit more time we took all our body measurements. Kate was most aggrieved that since she last measured in the Kanifing house the only measurement that had gone down was 1 cm off her waist.

The week in work was interesting, meeting all the different characters in the office and trying to size them up. We spent one day at a workshop on English grammar. Its fair to say that the Gambian teachers had a better grasp on English grammar than either Kate or I did. The eight parts of speech etc. They do like to argue about the smallest details though. Anyway just spent ages trying to get some downloads that will make the west wing dvds that Kate gave me work on my computer.

Yesterday was the last day of motorbike training. Big sigh of relief from all, especially Kate. We all made a pact that we were going to go with bravery in our hearts and try to impress Salifou. But it followed a similar pattern really. First of all I managed to very nearly mow down an ancient cyclist who just rode across the road straight in front of me. I missed him by not very much at all. Then we made the hair raising jouney through Serrekunda market. You really need your wits about you as there seem to be no traffic laws or protocol, it's very much every taxi, tuk tuk, man, goat or donkey for himself. At one point we managed to get jammed into the side by a water truck spraying the roads and got absolutely drenched. When we stopped Kate yanked off her helmet and exclaimed to Salifou " But Lucy nearly died so many times on that journey" After that perilous start we got to the off road section of the trip at which point things got much worse.

It really is very scary riding through sand when your motorbike is slipping and sliding and wobbling and you feel like you are going to fall but you know you just have to keep going. A few times I very nearly crashed into the back of Liz and at one point I ground to a halt and managed to drop my bike and add a few fresh bruises to my legs which are quite an array of colours at the moment.

Kate had another freak out at Salifou when he helpfully suggested that she should try not to ride in the sand! There was some choice language and again he tried unsuccessfully to pacify her. We did 10 k on the off road bit through several little villages. Finally we got to the tarmac road. This was the best part of the ride. We got the bikes up to 50 - 60 k and rode about 22 kilometres along the coast. This was really good fun and we managed to end the training on a high note. Salifou seemed pleased with us and even said I think me and Kate will become good friends now the training is over!

So our 4 week training period is at an end. We have run out of gas in the house so we have to eat out or at the bitikos for the remainder of the time. Our shopping trip was quite successful yesterday and now I seem to have more household equipment than I have at home in Wales. We had a text from Kanti in Soma saying looking forward to you both getting here. It's very lonely. I think we will both be glad to get there and unpack and sort ourselves out. We start work on Thursday. Our first day is meeting everyone in the office and then we have to be introduced to the important people in the community like the alkola and the district police chief and all that and then we go out to do some school visits. Me and Kate have agreed that we will go the closest schools first as the motorbiking is still quite new. Pete and Liz hit the ground running when they get to Janjanbureh. The week after they arrive they have been roped into helping deliver a week long course in Basse which is 80k from Janjanbureh, for 250 teachers on early reading. There are only four of them delivering it.

The blog might be a bit more intermittant now as Soma isn't so well equipped in terms of internet but keep emailing because I look forward to hearing from everyone. We are having a final day at the beach today which will be nice. Lots of love. Hope everything at home is well. xxx

Then there were four

So we are down to four in the Kanifing house now. Kanti and Phil left today for their placements. Pete's counting down the days until he leaves. The big brother house as is his idea of hell. The motobiking mayhem has begun and now nearly ended and guess who fell off! I'm not the only one though as all of us apart from Peter have taken a tumble. My downfall was the deep sandy street that our instructor Salifou took us to which we had to hare up and down in third gear, except going anywhere even in first and second gear was a near impossibility. Salifou's technical advice was open the throttle, look where you're going and have bravery in your heart. Kate and Liz tried it but kept getting stuck but they made it without falling off. Even Pete the experienced biker found it hard. Cockney Jim was the best. He did it really well and his advice was " Babe just up the revs and floor it down there." I got most of the way up the street, slipping and sliding everywhere hanging on for dear life and then all of a sudden I was on the floor with my leg trapped underneath the motorbike and some concerned locals rushed over to extricate me. My leg is a bit black and blue but I was fine. I was more concerned that I had broken the bike. Kate spent most of the day in tears with Salifou trying to pacify her. As soon as we got in the 70 dalasi ginn made an appearance in order to calm our shattered nerves. It didn't help that everywhere we went we drew a rather sizeable crowd of curious school children.

Today was riding up hills and hill starts. Salifou thought it couldn't get any worse than yesterday but he was wrong. First on the way to the place where we were going to practise the hill starts Liz managed to fall off. Then we all looked at the size and condition of the hill and looked at each other in horror. He wanted us to do it first sitting and then standing and then stop half way up and do a hill start. The hill start was where cockney Jim had probably the most spectacular fall yet. He careered up the hill, lost control, did a bit of a wheelie and ploughed through a potato field eventually falling into the potatoes. He emerged with a cut leg and some bruises saying "don't worry man I'm fine." At this point Kate freaked out and starting shouting at Salifou whose exasperation by now had reached a new level. " But all the other volunteers could do this." I was supposed to go next and Salifou came and said to me with great uncertainty in his voice. " You want to try Lucy?" and looked mightily relieved when I rode up the hill and back down again without incidence. He decided to abandon the hill start with all of us though. He just kept shaking his head I don't think he knew quite what to do.

We then rode to the golf course and got shouted at because they were too busy to have us hareing up and down the fareways. So then we rode to the beach and were supposed to go riding on the beach but the tide was in. At this point Salifou couldn't bear it any longer so we rode back to the centre weaving in and out of gele geles and taxis and people and goats. Scary!
Tomorrow we are going for a trail ride so his parting advice to us was. Make sure you come in tomorrow with some confidence. I'm not sure that's going to happen though!

Our departure to Soma has been put off until Tuesday which gives us a bit more time to shop.
We went to the high commission to have a talk by the high commissioner and deputy high commissioner. We brainstormed all the trouble that we could possibly get into and then they reassured us with the fact that they probably wouldn't do anything about it if we did get into trouble because it would probably be our own fault. On a positive note they did say that they would invite us to a party for the royal gibraltar regiment. At which point I happened to glance at Kate whose eyes positively lit up!

Banjul to Barra

We have just returned from our up country excursion so we are all diligently blogging so we don’t forget the details. We left the Kanifing house early on Friday morning and drove to the ferry terminal where we met the new volunteers. Three from Uganda all working for the disability program, Denis, Moses and Paul and Jim from the uk who is a primary teacher going to be working in Basse, the hottest and furthest place in the Gambia. The ferry terminal was hot and busy with hawkers, goats, foot passengers, vehicles of various sorts. We had to wait quite a while to get on, but the ferry journey to Barra on the North Bank was good, welcome breeze and no hassle. Rachel made another friend on the way over who wanted her email and to invite her to his forthcoming wedding. Kate got a lecture on teaching skills by a nice guy who said he was a scientist.

First stop was Fort Bullen, only about 5 minutes drive from the ferry terminal which is on the shores of the river. We stopped for an omlette sandwich and a walk around the fort and a walk on the beach. Word had obviously spread that the toubabs were in town and we soon gained company in the form of about 6 small boys. Kate, Rachel and I played ball games with them with tin foil balls. They seemed to really enjoy this. They took a real shine to Pete and he soon had one on each hand walking along the beach. They were fun and very friendly but very limited in their English considering some of them were about 12. We couldn’t try our Mandinka out on them either as they were Wolof. They shook all our hands as we left and they managed to pilfer several of our water bottles which they were delighted with and they ran after the truck waving. It was a nice experience to start off the weekend.

We made our way on the highly bumpy road to Jerreh camp. Our truck was open so it was great to view the scenery. Kate and I were both wondering how on earth we are going to manage riding the motorbike on these roads. The truck was almost on its side in several parts as we negotiated ditches and potholes. Lots of it was forest and we were also continually lashed in the face by the “voluntary policemen” as Ebrima called them, growing on the side of the road. Before we reached Jerreh camp we stopped at the compound of the alkola, the village chief, to pay our respects. He gave us a bit of a talk on the role of the chief and the history of chieftancy in the Gambia. The chief has a administrative and judiciary role. Only criminal matters are taken to the courts. We also met Nuha’s mother who lives in the village. Every village we passed through in the truck children came flocking, running after the truck shouting "hellö' and "toubab" and "any bottle" they like to have the empty water bottles and "give me mintie" This is because it's a well worn tourist route so they are used to people throwing them things like sweets out of the vehicles.

The setting of Jerreh camp was really nice. It is on the shores of the lake and is really peaceful. The existing voluteers, Emma, Paul Courtney and Andrew were already there but Paul and Courtney had come off the bike and Paul had had to go to a health centre to have stitches in his leg.

That evening there was some cultural entertainment from a group called the caneling. They are a group of women who are or in some cases were barren and they formed a kind of support group and go round performing, dancing and singing and raising money. If one of them do eventually have a child that child is afforded great significance in the community. Sometimes they are identified by beads around their necks or by a boy dressing as a girl and vice versa. We all sat in a circle and watched but at the end they invited us up to dance. If they come and put the beads around your neck you had to do up and dance so in the end we were all up there. It was really funny. Gambian dancing isn't that hard. They seem stick their bums out and stamp their feet and clap. For even someone like me with little natural dance talent it was doable. Pete's dancing was the funniest. His Gambian dance partner even sat him back down he was so bad.

That night a few of us Emma, Andrew, Rachel, Kate and Phil sat out on the pier playing drinking games with Andrew's bottle of 70 dalasi ginn (apparently regularly consumed by the volunteers)It's really just alcohol with ginn flavouring I think.

The next morning we made our way to the next camp which was at Jufferh, albreda about 10km away. This is which the slave kunta kinteh was said to have descended from. Alex Haley visited
the village and interviewed Kunta Kinteh's ancestors for the roots book and some of roots was filmed in the village. So now it's quite a big tourist place. Consequently the people are quite persistent in trying to get money out of you, pestering you to take a picture of their baby etc. One woman said she would sell us her baby for a million dalasi or some such amount. We went to see the alkola of the village who in this case was a woman and then we went to see the ancestors of Kunteh Kinteh. One of them gave me my Gambian name which is after her, Aja Mariyama. Aja means that you have done the Hajj, the muslim pilgrimage to mecca. They might give me another Gambian name though when we go to placement. Usually you are named after someone in your compound. Rachel is Awa because she was named when she visited Brikama. People here often have the same name because the first daughter is usually named Fatou and the first son Mohammed. There are a lot of Lamins and Alhagis. Apparently they do call you by your Gambian name most of the time once they have named you. It's their way of welcoming you into the community which is nice.

In the afternoon we visited James Island which is where they kept the slaves for transportation to the Americas etc. The journey on a big wooden boat was made quite amusing by the drummer with the not so good voice singing us welcome to the Gambia songs and then Bob Marley no woman no cry so he went round the entire boat substituting our names, no Carol no cry, no Rachel no cry, no Lucy no cry. You get the idea! A lot of the island itself has been eroded but the ruins of the slave quarters and the cannons are still there. It was quite a sobering place as you might expect. Apparently when they abolished slavery the last slaves were told they were free but were told they had to swim back to the mainland. None of them survived because they were eaten by the crocodiles and sharks which inhabited the river Gambia then because they regularly threw slaves bodies into the river. That's what the guide told us. I have never seen roots but will have to try to read the book.

That night after dinner we had a game of cards and a few julbrews until late into the night. At least the ones of us with stamina stayed up until the early hours. The next morning the existing volunteers made their way back to Kerewan on their motorbikes and we went on our way to the ferry. The journey back was a laugh as Ebrima impersonated the drummer with the souvenir drum Denis had bought and did his rendition of no woman no cry. Then everyone had to do a turn with a song and the drum. The Ugandans perfomed some of their songs for us. I did a song which I do with the kids, which Rachel videoed so I will try and include it on the blog if I can!

So that's the trip. It was good meeting with the existing volunteers to find out a bit about what they do in their placements. Emma and Paul do most of their work on early reading and jolly phonics aswell as meeting with heads and trying to get them to monitor and support the teachers etc. Courtney came out us an accompanying partner with Paul. Her background was in construction but now is a vounteer herself and is active in the small project fund. She was telling us about a toy for the children's unit in the Royal Victoria Teaching hospital in Banjul that she is in the process of designing. It's like a wooden free standing structure with different faces with activities for the children to do like threading the beads, surfaces with different textures, a maze type thing. She is still looking for a few ideas for the remaining sides so if anyone has any bright ideas! I think she is funding part of it herself by doing fundraising at home.

If any of you teachers has any useful jolly phonics material or other good early reading material that could be adapted to use with minimal resources please email it to me as it seems this is the main emphasis. I guess I will know a bit more about what I will need when I get to placement. I'm hoping I will develop the ability to be more imaginative and creative with few resources. But If anyone has any bright ideas it all helps.

Motorbike training starts tomorrow and I think we are riding round the golf course. Should be fun. Rachel leaves for Brikama tonight. So a few at a time we are all departing. Will keep you posted about the motorcycle training which should be good for a few stories! xx Lots of love